Oh, the smell of a new calendar month in the morning, a three-day weekend on the way, and index funds jammed on their positions. The thing like the “last day of the month, first day of the month” trend flop. Now, if it will only stick.

Yesterday, we learned that the USDA has finally acknowledged that it takes a lot of groceries (corn) to get that last 100 pounds of overfed beef that we’ve been producing for over a year in the feedlots to get more beef. This officially lowers new crop carryout by 100 Mil Bu, putting it in that 1.8 Bil Bu category.

Into the future, corn could possibly see further reductions in acreage due to preventive plant that the USDA will take months to follow up on. There to lower harvest acreage. And now, looking further into the future, we will likely see demand from Europe for US corn grow considerably. It is very likely we’ll see 1-2 MMTs of growth in corn exports to the EU, which will change the story for quarter 1 and quarter 2 exports in 2027. Portugal and Spain have shown over the past 6 months that they like our corn, and we will likely see more others do so as well.

Yesterday, we also learned that North American wheat acreage is collapsing, as Stats Canada confirmed a lower wheat acreage crop yesterday morning, and then the USDA put our wheat acreage down another 1 Mil acres, making it the smallest acreage crop in 150 years. Not that it matters to anyone (index funds), but ultimately this builds a story for price strength this fall (especially if the Super El Niño affects Australia, as it consistently does to their wheat production) and possibly marks the harvest low for wheat yesterday morning.

After the dust settled yesterday, the USDA admitted later in the report that there were still 1.9 million acres of corn and 8 million soybean acres left to plant when the data for the report was collected. There is no question that a large amount of this acreage will be left unplanted in the Eastern Corn Belt this year. They also showed that harvested corn acres could be down 4% this year at 87.4 million. It’s the Eastern Corn Belt that may elevate that number in the future as more reports of acre abandonment continue to come in.

Over the pond, there is no rain in sight for the next two weeks for France and Spain, but what they do get is searing hot temperatures all next week. Yesterday, Paris corn futures again pushed higher, trading at €238/MT on weather worries before a light retreat into the close of the month. This morning, they are firmer again, trading up $1.50 to 227. French milling wheat this morning’s up 1.50 at €203.50, reflecting a firmer trend development, even though some will say their supplies are ample despite late production losses during the flowering stage.

Since the USDA counts their roosters before the eggs are hatched, we can do that as well. What we can see coming is that stocks appear to be in a downtrend, while our biofuel needs are growing substantially for both ethanol and biodiesel. Cheap corn has done its job of boosting exports, and it appears we will likely see old-crop corn stocks decline another 50 Mil Bu before it’s all done, as exports continue to outpace the USDA’s calculations (this will push new crop carry out potentially on paper down to 1.8 Bil Bu).

Oh yes, and our crush continues to grow, as we have raised our domestic soybean crush demand to 62%. Over five years ago, we exported 60% of our beans. So China better get in line pretty quickly and start buying their beans to accumulate 25 MMTs before year-end, or they will take off Trump again. Good weather price breaks look to be buying opportunities for end-users.